Thursday, October 10, 2013

How to Backup a Critical or Live Database?


Scenario: 

Oracle 9i 9.2 and Oracle 10g 10.2 Database are used for the Active Enterprise Applications like Peoplesoft and Oracle E-Business based Apps.  Database does not have any Dataguard or RAC.

Databases are standalone instances with live transactions - what would be the best backup strategy for this case.

In other words, How would you back up and recover an actively used Database which cannot afford any shutdown or maintenance window at minimal?

Suggestion: 

If you are working with transaction Production Databases the first thing I would do is setting the Databases in Archivelog mode to be able  to Backup the Databases online and also enable online recovery for some scenarios. 

In archivelog mode all Backups can be taken without needing to stop the Databases and with the archivelog files you can recover up to the last committed operation that occurred in your Database before a media failure (or) due to some other issue. 

To securely backup and to minimize the downtime when failures occur I would recommend considering having a Data guard or other type of replication (Streams, Golden Gate).

Reference / Read More: 

1. Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery Basics
10g Release 2 (10.2)
B14192-03

Chapter: 4.3 Backing Up Database Files and Archived Logs with RMAN

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/backup.102/b14192/bkup003.htm

2. Oracle® Database Administrator's Guide
11g Release 1 (11.1)
B28310-04

Section: Choosing Between NOARCHIVELOG and ARCHIVELOG Mode

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28310/archredo002.htm


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